Caught In His Gilded World

CHAPTER THREE

MARTIN DANTON MADE a groaning sound.

His brother looked poised to take the little redhead out.

Red stood her ground.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ responded Khaled, not taking his eyes off her, ‘never having been inside the Crazy Horse.’

He caught the slight eye-roll and the tightening of her lips. His hand tightened around the crumpled ball of spurious invective this young woman had clearly swallowed whole.

‘Gigi, ça suffit,’ interrupted Jacques Danton. That’s enough.

But she didn’t back down. ‘I think we have a right to know,’ she protested. ‘It’s our jobs.’

He would have been more impressed if he hadn’t suspected her boss had put her up to it.

‘Your jobs are safe for the moment.’ He threw it in because it was accurate—today. Tomorrow, possibly not.

‘Splendide!’ Jacques Danton beamed.

‘That’s not what I asked,’ Red interrupted, and she lifted those lively blue eyes to his.

Not in appeal, he registered, but setting herself against him. Clearly not fooled one bit—unlike her boss.

For a moment he considered the alternative: that this wasn’t some set-up and that the girl—a lot sharper than the Dantons and, unlike them, willing to take him on—was acting alone.

‘We’re not a strip club, Mr Kitaev, and it would ruin—’

She took a breath and something like anguish crumpled up her striking features. In the time it took her to compose herself Khaled became interested in what exactly she thought he was ruining for her.

But she shook her head and changed direction. ‘Ruin the character of the theatre!’

‘I wasn’t told the theatre had a character.’

More laughter.

She looked around, as if thrown by the lack of support, and unexpectedly his conscience stirred.

‘Nobody is going to be asked to take off their clothes,’ he said, exasperated. Hell, he didn’t know what would happen here. Go on as before, bleeding funds, because after the dose he’d had of French spleen over the place only a fool would touch it? He’d be lucky to give it away.

Red, however, seemed to be under the mistaken belief that there was something here worth saving.

‘Voulez-vous, filles?’

Jacques Danton began clapping his hands at the other dancers and their audience began to break up.

‘Maintenant, Gigi,’ he snapped.

She was clearly torn between doing as she was told and continuing to question him about their jobs, but Khaled could already see she wouldn’t stand up to her boss.

Just him.

Which was a first, given that men with a lot more wherewithal than this girl—industrialists, Duma members, Moscow gangsters—stepped carefully around him. Then again, those men didn’t have her lavender eyes or, frankly, her sexual pull.

She was by no means the most beautiful girl backstage, but she was the only one he couldn’t take his eyes off.

Something to do with her bold features and lively eyes, and an innate sensuality she appeared to be entirely unaware of.

Pity she danced here...

Shame he was flying out tomorrow...

Another dancer—the frowning little brunette—had edged up to her. She took Red’s hand with a furtive look of disapproval in his direction and tugged her away. Smart girl.

Red...Gigi...kept glancing over her shoulder at him before the rest of the dancers swallowed her up.

It was a slender shoulder, as finely designed as the rest of her, and it put him in mind of the Spanish painter Luis Ricardo Falero’s amusing, graceful mythological girls. He knew he was done here, and yet he found his eyes following the red pigtails, bouncing amidst the crowd of other girls as the famous Bluebirds vanished into the rabbit warren of corridors.

* * *

That evening the dressing room was noisier and more lively than usual before the first performance.

Khaled Kitaev was the sole subject of discussion.

‘The rumour is that the Russian supermodel Alexandra Dashkova had herself wrapped in a rug, Cleopatra-style, taken up to his hotel suite in Dubai last month and unrolled before him like war booty.’

This was greeted with various oohs and aahs and had Gigi hesitating in the act of applying three-ounce lashes to her eyelids.

‘No one’s got a chance with him, then,’ groaned Adele at Susie’s announcement, and the cramped dressing room was filled with sighs and grumbles and more speculation.

‘C’est vrai.’ Solange regarded her breasts with satisfaction, adjusting her diamante-studded costume. ‘He’s asked for me by name. I’m having a drink with him after the show tomorrow.’

Gigi’s hand slipped and the fake lashes ended up part-way down her cheek.

‘Great,’ grumbled Lulu under her breath, leaning forward to pluck the feathered blob from Gigi’s cheek and pass it to her. ‘Ten to one she’ll sleep with him and make the rest of us look easy.’ Only being Lulu she didn’t actually say easy—she mouthed it.

There was a neat little division down the centre of the Bluebirds. The dancers who accepted invitations from the visiting Hollywood A-listers and rock stars who came to the shows, and those who lined up each night after the last show for the courtesy bus.

It was something Gigi had organised when a couple of the girls had complained about not feeling safe leaving the venue at night, given that the theatre was bumped up against the red light district, and now the bus was a regular thing.

Gigi and Lulu never missed the bus. Solange took every invitation that came her way. Apparently she’d taken this one too.

Not that there was anything wrong with that, Gigi told herself. She only cared because it confirmed her worst suspicions about Kitaev’s plans for them.

She slapped down the lid on her make-up case.

‘Sorry G,’ said Leah, obviously alerted by the bang of Gigi’s case and not sounding sorry at all. ‘You went to all that trouble for nothing.’

‘Not for nothing,’ Lulu rallied back loyally in her defence. ‘We all got a good look.’

Too good, thought Gigi fiercely. Any hope that Khaled Kitaev was going to take ownership of the cabaret seriously was out of the window. As of now the Bluebird was in serious jeopardy.

And what was it with everyone thinking she’d done it on purpose? Sheesh.

No, she knew all about this man. She had scrolled through lists of his public holdings on the internet, chased them to various websites, and was still struggling to make sense of how he’d made his money.

Initially, it appeared, as an oil trader—but he seemed to have a finger in a lot of pies. Shady, she decided. She had learned from watching her dad at work that big money was probably amassed in the same way as her father’s smaller cheats: through the exploitation of someone else.

‘So what do you think he’s going to do to us?’ asked Trixie, one of the youngest dancers.

Given he’d already honed in on Solange, Gigi had a pretty good idea.

‘Do you think he’ll try to change things? Maybe fix things up?’ Trixie sounded optimistic. ‘It might not all be bad, Gigi.’

No, it was probably worse. Gigi hated to disillusion her, but facts had to be faced.

She stood up to face the room.

‘Could I have everyone’s attention?’

A couple of the girls glanced her way, but the noise level didn’t drop.

She raised her voice. ‘Can we just try to look at the big picture here—instead of getting into a lather about his sex life?’

The word ‘sex’ had a few more heads turning and the volume dropping.

‘Kitaev owns a string of gambling venues around the world.’ Gigi paused to let that sink in. ‘Have you thought about what that might mean for us?’

‘Oui,’ said Ingrid, ‘a pay-rise.’

There was a ripple of laughter.

‘Loosen up, G,’ advised another girl, giving her a friendly push.

‘She can’t—she hasn’t been laid in so long I’m surprised she didn’t squeak when she fell off that aquarium,’ cackled Susie.

‘Gigi’s just smarting because her little stunt didn’t make him single her out,’ sang out Mia from across the room.

‘Give it up, G,’ said Adele. ‘Oh, that’s right—you never do!’

There was a howl of good-natured laughter.

Gigi knew she needed to get the discussion back on track, because now Susie was wanting to know what the point was of being a showgirl if you didn’t take advantage of the perks: rich men.

‘The point is no one should date Kitaev,’ Gigi interrupted. ‘He shouldn’t be encouraged!’

The laughter only became more raucous. Even Lulu gave her a rueful look.

He’s going to win, thought Gigi a little desperately.

The dressing room door banged open.

‘Guess who’s just arrived, ladies?’ announced Daniela, sparkling in full costume.

There was a twitter of excitement.

‘Not Kitaev.’

The twittering died down.

‘Girls, its wall-to-wall security and every rich Russian in the city is here—and everyone from Fashion Week seems to have followed them. The media are ten-thick outside. I think I’m going to faint!’

Amidst the shrieks, Lulu adjusted her headdress and said brightly, ‘There you go, Gigi. Maybe he’s not so bad for business after all.’

‘So he’s sent his friends?’ she grumbled. ‘One night does not a week make. We’re just a novelty act for a bored, spoilt-for-choice, testosterone-injected, arrogant—’

But now even her best friend had jumped ship and was on her way out, giggling with the other girls, trailing the six-foot feather tail they all had attached to their waists for the first number.

Troubled, Gigi finished attaching her own.

That many customers wasn’t to be sneezed at, given they regularly performed to a half-empty theatre, and this had been their worst year yet.

Maybe the other girls saw something she didn’t.

Yes, she thought cynically, they saw something, all right. They saw Solange draping her skinny arms around Khaled Kitaev’s broad neck and a line of ambitious showgirls asking when was it their turn.

Solange was apparently going to have hers, and it firmed Gigi’s chin.

The lowest common denominator was not going to save this theatre or their jobs.

Khaled Kitaev didn’t care about the cabaret. He had no stake in it. He’d won the thing in a card game. All he cared about was the bottom line. Specifically at the moment that bottom being Solange’s, but Gigi could well imagine him cutting a swathe through the other bottoms of the troupe. There were some very shapely bottoms.

Gigi swished her plumage-heavy tail like a haughty lyrebird and took off after the other girls.

She would see about that.

* * *

‘Mademoiselle...?’

‘Valente.’

‘Mademoiselle, I’m afraid I cannot give you the information you seek. At the Plaza Athénée we value our guests’ right to privacy.’

The concierge gave her that bland smile peculiar to people in his job all over the world. Only somehow the Frenchman managed to add that extra little soupçon of superiority.

Gigi knew her bad accent wasn’t helping. She should have brought Lulu along this morning. Lulu was half-French, and her big brown Audrey Hepburn eyes and air of delicate femininity made grown men trip over themselves to help her out. With her propensity to help herself and make a mess of it, Gigi found she was mostly sidelined and all too frequently laughed at.

Still, you could only work with what you’d got, and given she’d left her flat in such a hurry this morning she’d left off her make-up, and with her hair still damp and messy from being dunked in the sink, it wasn’t exaggerating to say she currently had the sex appeal of an otter.

‘But how am I supposed to reach him?’ she tried again.

‘Mademoiselle could try the telephone.’

‘You’ll give me his number?’

‘Non, I would assume that as you are the friend you say you are, you will have it.’

‘I’m not his friend, exactly,’ Gigi prevaricated, and because she had a detestation of lies and subterfuge, having seen the chaos her father left in his wake, she opted for the truth. ‘I’m his employee. I’m a showgirl at L’Oiseau Bleu.’

For the first time the concierge looked directly at her instead of addressing that distant spot beyond her shoulder.

‘Vous êtes une showgirl?’

She relaxed. Everyone loved a showgirl. It was like carrying a great big shiny key to the city.

‘Oui, m’sieur.’

The concierge leaned closer. ‘Is it true, then? The barbarian is at the gate?’

What gate? It took Gigi a moment to catch on. She’d forgotten in the other girls’ excitement that most of Paris shared her misgivings about the ‘foreign usurper’. Giving it her best, I’m as distressed as you are look, she manufactured a theatrical sigh. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Dieu sauver la France!’ He crossed himself.

Gigi tried not to let her surprise show. Given she was the one with her job at risk, it was odd how personally the Parisian in the street was taking the new ownership of L’Oiseau Bleu.

Perhaps if those same people transformed their outrage into actually coming to a show and pushing up box office receipts they’d have a chance of survival. Blaming the newcomer on the scene—even if he was a Russian oligarch with questionable intentions—didn’t seem quite fair.

But she didn’t hesitate to press her advantage—it was one of the few things she had learned from her father that she could use.

‘Quite. Now, can I have that room number?’

The concierge looked most sympathetic. ‘Non,’ he said.

Gigi didn’t push it. She turned around, her shoulders sinking, and as she wondered if she should leave a message for him, which would probably go unread, everything changed.

Khaled Kitaev had just entered the lobby.

He was looking at his phone, which gave her the moment she needed to pull herself together, although the aggression in his body language should have had her second-guessing her decision even to try this.

Be brave, Gigi, she lectured herself. You’ve had more auditions than hot meals. It’s just another audition... Only this was possibly her last chance, and it could all go so horribly wrong.

As he strode towards her she took in the unruly dark hair, the beard that framed his beautiful face and enhanced that whole macho thing he was into.

It was working. Women’s heads were turning as if they were EMF devices, picking up on his frequency, and not a few men were looking him up and down as they reconsidered the suits they’d so carefully dressed in this morning.

It took a lot of machismo and confidence to render a pair of trainers, sweat pants and a long grey T-shirt with some indecipherable Cyrillic lettering on it stylish against the luxury of the hotel’s interior and its swish inhabitants, but Khaled Kitaev pulled it off. Everyone else just looked wrong.

He was coming right for her.

There was no hiding now.

Think about what you’re going to say. Be polite. Be professional.

She took some deep calming breaths.

Have some of your material ready. But don’t shove it at him. Be friendly, but formal.

She wasn’t sure how she’d manage friendly but formal.

He looked up from his phone and at the concierge. All the nearby hotel staff had leapt to attention. He lowered the phone long enough to ask for two brand-new laptops to be sent up to his suite.

‘Landslide?’ he growled into the phone. ‘There’s one a day in that part of the world. Get a bulldozer in there and clear the damn thing.’

Gigi observed this exchange with pulse-raised interest, flinching a little as she watched his hand flatten to its full wingspan dimensions on the desk, so close to her she could have reached out and touched it. But she was glad she didn’t when he fired some aggressive Russian into the ear of whoever was on the other end of his call. Maybe now wasn’t a good time...

* * *

Khaled slammed his hand against the nearest solid surface. He couldn’t believe it. Another meeting pushed back by the village council. Another surveyor’s report held up because of a landslide.

He wouldn’t put it past the clan elders to plant a stick of dynamite into the escarpment and bring down half the mountain onto the highway below just to damn well spite him. Two years and he was no closer to putting that road in.

No road—no resort.

How many people had he sent into the gorge to explain the benefits a new infrastructure would bring? Any infrastructure in a corner of the world where the men still herded sheep on horseback. Always there was the same response: initial agreement, new contracts drawn up and then at the last minute something would interfere.

When he had spoken with the clan council they had taken him to task about his Russian investors and the lack of consultation. Khaled had stood, arms folded, at the back of the low dark room that served as a community hall in the town and refused to react or engage.

All he had seen was the memory of his stepfather’s eyes, narrow like slits, as he beat him with a piece of horse tack as if that would make him less another man’s son.

Unable to withstand the brutality of the memory, without a word Khaled had walked out into the bright daylight, jumped into his truck and driven out of the valley. His last communication with the council was when he was much further north, flying over the Pechora Sea, inspecting a Kitaev oil platform, and a message had been sent to him via his lawyers.

Where is your home? Where is your wife? Where are your children? When you have these things come to us in the proper way and we will talk.

In other words, Respect our customs and we’ll see it your way.

Customs... He was a modern man, and he had made his fortune in a modern world—he wasn’t entering into that kind of old-world game-playing...

He turned away from the desk, snapping his phone closed, catching his elbow on someone’s round, firm...

‘Ow!’

He looked down and golden-lashed blue eyes turned up to his like searchlights, complete with a little scowl that brought her fine coppery brows together and formed a knot.

‘You...’ he said, clearing his throat.

‘Yes, me!’ Her low-pitched, softly accented voice was like Irish whisky—unexpected in a girl so slight and young. She had one hand clamped over her breast and was tenderly massaging the area, her expression pained.

‘Forgive me.’ His gaze dipped to what little he could see, given her hand was stashed under her jacket.

When she’d pulled out that bit of libel yesterday she’d flashed a purple bra cup and the swell of a firm milk-pale breast marked on the gentle upper slope by a single dark brown freckle. It was a freckle he’d had on his mind ever since.

Only today she appeared to be wearing some kind of pink T-shirt, high-necked, completely unrevealing, along with jeans and a blue wool jacket.

She’d also ditched the pigtails, and her hair hung heavily over her shoulders—coppery red, long, thick and wavy...messy, if you got down to it. Sexy.

Sexy he didn’t need. For one thing, he was signing her pay cheques. Ostensibly. Although he’d seen how much those girls were paid. He’d laid down more on a tie than on her monthly wage.

All the more reason to keep moving...

Which he did.

* * *

Gigi watched him walk away from her without another word, as if their encounter had never happened. She tried not to be offended. She’d pretty much expected it would take some effort. After all, she wasn’t sexy Solange, offering who knew what? She was woman-on-a-mission Gigi, offering flyers and a presentation.

Not that he knew that. But she guessed he only needed a glance to work out the difference between them.

Nevertheless, she hurried after him, swinging her backpack forward over one shoulder and rummaging inside for the vintage-style flyers she’d brought to show him—evidence of how classy the Bluebird had once been and could be again.

He’d see that she was serious and had done her research, and he might sit down and talk to her.

She was right behind him when there was a whoosh of movement in the air beside her—and for the second time in as many days Gigi found herself on the floor, the stuffing knocked out of her.

CHAPTER FOUR

A MALE VOICE GRUNTED, ‘Do not move.’

Gigi didn’t think she’d be moving. No, not moving at all. She was too stunned to do anything other than lie there, even once the knee resting on the base of her spine was gone and her arms, which had been pinned to her sides, were once more her own.

She only began to react when she was being hauled—not ungently—to her feet. She swayed as blood rushed back into her head and an arm came around her waist to support her. She staggered, and her nose and forehead banged against a hard male chest. She inhaled faint spicy aftershave and heat.

Gigi edged up her chin and her gaze locked on eyes so lustrously dark it was like being dropped into a hot, dark night.

The world shrank down to his thick, steady heartbeat and her short, rapid breaths.

He was speaking to her, but it was like being underwater. All she could make out was that no one was attacking her and the big male arms clamped around her felt like protection.

Which was when she spotted a gorilla—the same one who had knocked her down—turning out her backpack.

It was a replay of her worst memory.

Her limbs exploded and she desperately tried to free herself.

‘‘That’s mine! Give me back my things! You have no right to touch my things!’

She made a hopeless grab for it, but Khaled Kitaev had hold of her elbow.

‘Calm down, dushka.’

She wasn’t going to calm down! The last time she’d had her belongings confiscated she’d had handcuffs slapped on her wrists and spent a night in the cells, thanks to her dad.

She struggled, but his strength was all over hers. Gigi lashed out with her elbow and struck him in the chest. Unlike her own chest there was nothing soft and tender about it—instead there was considerable muscle and definition and she only jarred her shoulder.

‘That’s enough!’

She stopped flailing long enough for him to release her. She pushed her hair out of her eyes with hands that were shaking uncontrollably. So much for being professional. Both of them.

‘Mr Kitaev, do we have a problem?’

The discreet enquiry was made by the concierge she had spoken to earlier. He materialised at her side, every inch the gatekeeper for the wealthy and influential. Gigi’s insides turned to liquid.

Khaled saw the effect on Red. She looked as if he was about to throw her to the lions.

‘Nichevo. No problem. A slight misunderstanding.’

‘Yes, sir, these things can happen. But the young lady—’

‘Mademoiselle Valente,’ said Khaled smoothly, and her name was right there, given he’d just happened to take a look at her file last night, ‘is my guest.’

‘I see, sir.’

‘My security team didn’t recognise her and were over-zealous. I apologise for the inconvenience to your other guests.’

‘Not at all, Mr Kitaev.’ But the concierge continued to regard Red with interest.

The look on her face had been comic in its alarm and indecision as she followed this exchange, but now as they both turned their attention her way she visibly pulled herself together.